Escorting the Actress (The Escort Collection Book 2) (3 page)

Then it would all be over. Everything I'd worked for. Everything I wanted so badly.

I wish I did have a new boyfriend to throw at them.
Then I sat up again. "Hey. Huh. I just thought of something."

"What?"

"Something my mom always says. Whenever she has a problem, she says she just throws some money at it. Like it'll magically make the problem disappear."

"That's because she's throwing
your
money. Or one of her ex-husbands'."

"But what if
I
did that? What if I threw some money at this?" I paced again. "What if I threw enough money at this that I could make it go away? Or at least obfuscate it?"

"Huh?" Tori looked at me as if I was crazy. And she had every right.

If I was attempting to apply my mother's "logic" to my problem, I was in deep, deep trouble. "What if I hired someone to act like my boyfriend and paid him enough so that he kept his mouth shut?"

"Who would you even ask? George Clooney?
Chris Pratt
?" She looked so excited, I was worried she was going to hyperventilate.

"I wish. But they're both married. I don't know… I don't know anybody I could ask." My mind racing a hundred miles a minute, I stared out the window at the tiny, pretty backyard of the house I'd saved and planned for.

What I needed was a body. A hot, handsome, strapping male body. I needed a showstopper of a guy to redirect the press. A super-hot guy who would do exactly what I said. I was pretty sure that didn't exist in real life, but this was Hollywood, and sometimes illusions seemed real here.

Huh.

I had a crazy idea about what I could do. Not only was it crazy, it was risky. Although I wasn't normally a risk-taker, I wasn't a quitter either. I'd clawed my way up over the past five years, doing a mindless sitcom and a string of pseudo-brooding indie movies, to get to where I was today—on the verge of real commercial success. I refused to watch my career crumble without putting up some sort of fight.

"I could always hire someone, I guess…"
Maybe that would be easier than an actual boyfriend.
Less messy. Less emotional. More of a business transaction.

"What?" Tori asked. "I'm not following you."

"Just give me a minute." I threw myself onto the bed and fired up my laptop.

I exited out of the
XYZ
screen so I wouldn't have to see that image of myself, my blond hair plastered against my forehead as I looked belligerently at the officer. Then I did a quick Internet search and found exactly what I was looking for.

What I couldn't believe I was looking for.

"Bingo," I said, finding a site for a service located in LA. "Tori, can you throw me my phone?"

I
was heading
out for a burrito when my phone buzzed. It was Elena, the owner-operator of AccommoDating, Inc., the "dating" service where I was currently employed.

I picked up immediately. "Elena, talk dirty to me."

"Kyle, knock it off," Elena said briskly.

As usual, she was all business. I could just picture her in an impeccable suit, her short hair spiky with mousse. I wasn't sure how she'd gotten involved in the escort business; she always seemed so proper.

"I just had a call come in from a first-time client. Someone who could be very valuable as a source for future confidential referrals. Are you available for a long-term assignment?"

"How long?" My voice was neutral, but I cringed. If I had to spend a lot more time with Mrs. Plastic Housewife, or someone with a similar disposition, I would probably develop a pretty serious drinking problem.

"It could run for a few weeks," Elena said, "depending on the circumstances."

Well, that was a new one. "Who needs an escort for a few weeks?"

"It's not that uncommon actually. My girls are often hired to take vacations with a client. In this case, it's more of an undercover assignment than a straight-up date."

"I'm totally lost right now," I said, raking my hand through my hair.

"The client is a young woman—a pretty famous actress, actually—who needs a fake boyfriend. The press has been giving her a hard time, and she has a premiere coming up. She needs a distraction in the form of a hot, new, devoted boyfriend."

I sat there, trying to understand what she was getting at.

Elena sighed in exasperation. "That would be
you
, Kyle. Come on, connect the dots with me."

"
I
would be the devoted boyfriend?" I said.

"Correct. If it works out, she might keep you on for a while longer, until things calm down. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in? Your earnings would be significant."

"I'm in," I said immediately. I needed the money badly. "You had me at the word
young
."

"Excellent," Elena said. "Come on in, get your health status verified, and sign the paperwork. You have to get your things together too. She's moving you into her house. Today."

"What if she doesn't like me?" I asked, but it was a purely rhetorical question. Getting women to like me had never been a problem.

I had a lot of problems, but that wasn't one of them.

Elena snorted. "As long as you keep your mouth shut, she'll like you just fine. They always do."

"
S
o
… who is it?" I asked later.

Elena and I were in the bright, immaculate, and minimalist Los Angeles branch of AccommoDating. She had started the escort service back on the East Coast, in Boston; she'd done so well that she expanded her operations out here.

"I'm not going to tell you right now, because I want you to meet her without any preconceived ideas about what she's like." Elena smoothed the button-down shirt she'd picked out for me and held up different ties next to it. "Just treat her like the nice, gorgeous, successful starlet that she is."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked. Elena shot me a dirty look, and I scoffed. "There's gotta be something wrong with her. Why's she hiring me?"

"I told you"—she frowned and held up another tie—"she's had some trouble with the paparazzi lately. She needs to feed them a story starring her new love interest. That's where you come in."

"Right, I get that—but why doesn't she actually
have
a love interest?"

"I think she's been busy with work," she said and shrugged dismissively. "It doesn't matter why. You don't actually have to
be
her boyfriend. You just have to
act
like her boyfriend. And follow any other rules she might throw at you. She sounded pretty Type-A, so I have a feeling there might be a few."

That a Type-A, gorgeous starlet had hired a male escort to help her out with the press seemed a little strange. "So I'm just going to drive to her house, meet her, move in with her, and pretend that I'm in love with her. In front of the paparazzi," I said, watching Elena warily.

"That's right—in front of the paparazzi and everyone else. And she said she doesn't want to sleep with you. So think of it as a vacation from your real job."

"What the hell? She doesn't want to sleep with her hot male escort? That's what I'm
for
. That's what I
do.
" I looked down at myself. "Seems like a waste." Secretly, I was pleased. A break from sex-for-hire would be a real vacation for me right now.

I could rest the salami.

"This is an
emergency
hire." Elena selected one of the ties and continued packing for me. "She couldn't find an actor to do it on such short notice. Besides, we have all the appropriate paperwork at the ready: a criminal background check, confidentiality agreement, clean bill of health, non-disclosure agreement, and I have insurance for you. She's in a tough spot, but she's a bright young woman. She knows what she's doing."

"If she's in so much trouble that she's hiring an escort to be her insta-boyfriend, it sounds like she might not know what she's doing."

Elena frowned at me. "You are advised to keep that, and any other hypotheses you might have, to yourself."

I sighed, feeling nervous, confused, and resigned. "So what am I going to do? Rattle around her house and do exactly what she says?"

Elena beamed at me. "Young man, that might be the smartest thing you've said to me yet." She zipped up my suitcase and stepped back to look at me. "You look good, Kyle. Healthy, muscular—a strapping, red-blooded American. The press will love you two together. I hope." She considered me for a moment. "And if she eventually decides she wants to sleep with you, count your blessings. You could do a lot worse."

"I don't doubt it," I said, thinking of Mrs. Plastic Housewife and her powerful thigh vise-grip. "I'm sure a change of pace will suit me just fine."

W
hile I was waiting
for the escort to arrive, I paced around the house, cold sweat dripping down my back.

Just when I was absolutely sure my day couldn't get any worse, my mother called from the latest stop on her spiritual junket—somewhere deep in Japan.

"I'm in
Kobe
, Lowell. I told you I was coming here!" she said, her voice crackling through my cell phone. "It's the Paris of Japan—very fashionable! It's exotic, darling. Hot springs and street fairs. All of the men are very short, of course, so I haven't met anyone—"

"Mother!" I desperately reached for my Advil. "Don't be so racist!"

"I'm not being racist, darling, I'm being honest, which is one of the things I'm supposed to focus on during this trip. It's a spiritual journey, darling. I told you. I'm drinking the tea and doing the poses, and I'm going to come back totally clear!"

She rattled on for what seemed like forever about the weather and the food and her yoga practice while I paced and counted backward from one thousand so that I wouldn't snap.

"So how are you, darling? How's it going?" she finally asked.

I took a deep breath. I'd been hoping we'd lose our connection so that I wouldn't have to tell her, but apparently this wasn't my lucky day. Again.

"Mom, there's something I need to tell you. I… sort of got into trouble last night. I got drunk and there was… there were… some pictures… and now I'm in trouble with my agent. And my director." I couldn't bear to tell her it was a video and that I might be fired.

"What?" she shrieked. "You got
drunk
? What on earth?"

"Lucas told me I needed to go on a diet. I freaked. And then I drank too much," I admitted.

"That's it," my mother snapped, going into full-on fixing mode. "I am sending my trainer over to you, and my chef. You are going on a juice cleanse, young lady. And you're going to start running hills. You have got to get control of this. We
need
this role. Everyone who works with Lucas Dresden gets nominated for a Golden Globe. It's your
turn
, darling."

I rolled my eyes.
We need this role.
My mother never failed to include herself in my career. With no current husband to focus on, she made my successes and failures her own.

She rattled off a list of things I should stop eating, and who she was going to hire to help me, and how where there was a will, there was a way. The only person who wanted my success as much as me, or maybe more, was my mother.

She was like the cheerleader from hell.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "Mom, you're breaking up!" I yelled for effect. "I'm hanging up. Don't send anyone over here! Shirley's all over this, and so am I. I'm taking care of everything—I promise to hit the gym every day—I love you!"

I leaned against my front door, shaking and completely drained. I loved her, but my mother often had that effect on me.

Just then, the doorbell rang, and I jumped about a foot. I looked through the window pane beside the door; he must be the escort. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and tall, dark, and handsome. He had thickly muscled arms and a hulking chest.

He turned toward me, his eyes catching mine, and I stared at his face. His handsome, familiar face. It was as though I recognized him… but I couldn't have recognized him. He was a male escort, for fuck's sake.

I kept staring, and he slowly smiled—a large, shit-eating grin. Then it hit me. Who he was.

I recognized his face within his face.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I yelled and ducked under the window. I pressed myself against the door, my chest heaving.
No
no no no.

It couldn't be. I must be hallucinating. Because my worst nightmare was standing in broad daylight right out in front of my house. I turned around and peered through the peephole, barely breathing. It was him. It couldn't be him, but it was him.

Kyle Richards was on my doorstep, looking amused, muscular, and very sexy.

Kyle. Fucking. Richards.

I'd always known I would pay for every bad thing I ever did, and here, on my doorstep, was living proof of that.

"Open the door, Lo," he called. "I think there's a photographer out here in the bushes. You don't want to leave me out here. I could tell him some good stories—about you. Before you were hot." I heard the shit-eating grin in his voice.

I stood, opened the door, and angrily motioned him in, my face flaming. "What're you doing here, Kyle?" I struggled to keep my voice even. "You looking for someone to suck money off of, besides your dad?"

"Ha ha," he said, grinning widely. He proceeded to look me up and down. "You know, I would say you haven't changed, but… you sure have, uh,
matured
nicely."

He gave me a wide, predatory smile as he pushed past me into the house, his eyes still raking up and down my body hungrily. I closed the door then crossed my arms over my chest. Then I crossed my legs, just for good measure.

Heat was rushing through me. Heat from embarrassment and disbelief. Heat caused by examining the thick, ropy muscles that covered Kyle Richard's arms and legs and the width of his massive, powerful chest.

I couldn't believe he looked so good. But of course he did. This was just another life lesson—that in no way, shape, or form was life fair.

I watched helplessly as he flopped onto the bench in my front hall, looking far too much at ease for my liking. He settled his thick frame down comfortably, as if he belonged in my house. As if he were staying.

No.
No fucking way.

"What're you doing here, Kyle?" I asked again, panic mounting inside me.

"You sent for me." Now he looked as smug as an alligator that had just swallowed a baby hippo. A sexy alligator.

But I was no baby hippo.

"What are you talking about?" I asked through gritted teeth, even though I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Elena sent me. From AccommoDating—you remember her, right?" His face split into a huge grin. "Surprise! I'm your friendly neighborhood escort, sent here from the Valley just to make your day. Or your week. And I'll tell you, Lo, I'm worth every penny. I've aged like a fine wine."

I didn't doubt him. Even though I desperately wanted to. I hadn't seen Kyle in almost eight years, but he'd only gotten better-looking, which was a predictably cruel twist of fate. His wavy brown hair and wide-set green eyes were the same, as was his handsome, arrogant face. Those muscles were new though. And annoyingly large.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said.

"Nah," Kyle said, looking pleased as punch. "I'm not."

He walked over to me slowly, his eyes taking in every square inch of my body, and he shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he saw. I knew the feeling. Now that I was twenty-two, I'd finally grown into my looks. The last time I'd seen Kyle, I was a pasty, brace-faced fourteen-year-old, saved from being ugly only by the stubborn plainness of my face and the light-blond color of my hair.

I still felt like that girl. When I looked in the mirror now, I was always pleasantly surprised that she wasn't staring back at me. But I still knew she was in there.

He leaned over toward me, and I felt his breath in my ear. I shivered.

"This is what you call karma," he said, "coming back to bite you in your holier-than-thou ass. Which is looking pretty good, by the way. I don't care what all those mansplainers say about it."

I glared at him, a hot blush creeping up my neck. So he knew. He'd seen my video, and he knew I was hiring an escort to try to save myself. Bitterness rose within me, overtaking every other feeling.

"I'm not holier-than-thou, Kyle Richards. And if I am, that's at least better than being a stoned, trust-funded loser," I said, putting my hands on my hips and straightening.

He beamed at me. "There she is. That's the Lo I remember—Little Miss Perfect. Except that now you're smokin' hot. Those braces really paid off."

My blush deepened—either in anger, or because of his ass-backward compliments, or both—but I kept my game face on. "How can you remember anything? You were too busy sneaking around with your friends, stealing your dad's cars and doing bong hits."

He snorted and stepped back. "Oh, and you were watching all of it—taking notes, I'm sure." Suddenly the sexy twenty-something was gone, replaced by the accusatory and exasperated teenager I remembered. "You were always ratting me out."

"I did it for your own good," I said, my chin jutting out.

Actually, I'd done it because I wanted to get him into trouble. He and his friends were always taunting me. His favorite name for me during my mother's four-year marriage to his father was either "bookworm" or "jerknerd." Thank the Lord he'd never heard my thoughts, in which I referred to him as "scrotumhead" and "loserface" on a semi-regular basis.

He'd always been handsome though. That'd just made everything worse.

Back when we were kids, Kyle had been really reckless. So yes, I'd told on him—in part because I didn't want to see him and his stupid friends get hurt. Well, I didn't care so much about his stupid friends. But I didn't want Kyle getting hurt, no matter how many times he slammed my books shut without their bookmarks in them, just to bug me. No matter how much he tortured me… when he actually was bored enough to notice me.

"Well, bookworm, you've made quite a name for yourself," Kyle said. "I guess you couldn't keep that mouth of yours in check though. I saw you on
XYZ
last night
.
You totally puked on that officer's shoes, you know."

"I know. I was there," I snapped, even though I didn't actually remember that part too well.

I glared at Kyle. As bad of a predicament as I'd been in this morning, it now seemed like a cakewalk compared to what I'd gotten myself into this afternoon. I'd hired an escort. To act as my boyfriend. So I could rehabilitate my image.

And now I had an event to go to—in Santa Monica, in two hours—and Tori had already leaked to the paparazzi that I'd be there. With my new, hot, completely devoted boyfriend.

My new, hot, completely devoted boyfriend who was actually my escort.

My escort who actually was my stepbrother.

My hot stepbrother.

My hot
ex
-stepbrother, but still.

But still.

I was so fucked.

We just looked at each other for a beat.

"You want a drink?" I asked finally.

In spite of my lingering hangover, I desperately needed some alcohol. Kyle Richards, my ex-stepbrother from hell, was standing in my foyer.

"Hell yeah," Kyle said under his breath and followed me to the kitchen. "You know I never say no to a drink."

"That hasn't changed?" I asked, looking through my liquor cabinet. I bypassed the tequila, vowing to pour it down the drain later.

"That hasn't changed." Kyle sat on one of my barstools and looked around my orderly, thoroughly updated kitchen. "Looks like you've done well for yourself. Maybe having your nose stuck in a book for so many years was a good idea after all."

I sighed and leaned back against the counter. I was exhausted. First the video, then my mother, and now Kyle. I felt as if someone had let all the air out of my tires.

"Does this look like a happy ending to you?" I asked, motioning to him and me and the bottle of Belvedere between us. "It's four o'clock. We're drinking hard liquor. I have to go to a designer sneaker event in two hours because I puked on a police officer's shoes last night. And someone filmed it. And it went viral. And I have to fix it somehow."

I opened the bottle and made two very tall vodka and tonics. "And you're my escort. I hired you to help rehabilitate my downward-spiraling image. And you're my stepbrother." I cackled uncontrollably and took a big swig of my drink. "So I don't think I've actually done that well for myself."

"Well, when you put it that way…" Kyle watched me from across the marble island.

It was disconcerting to see him as a grown man. He'd always been tall, but the last time I'd seen him, which was almost eight years ago, he'd been much thinner. He used to eat all the time, but he never gained a pound. That was just one of the many things about him that had annoyed me.

"So then there's me," Kyle said.

I realized then he'd been watching my face while I checked him out from head to toe. I felt that hot, ugly blush creep up my neck again, but I ignored it, along with the cocky look on his face.

"Yes—you. How'd you end up in southern California, working as a male escort?" I grimaced. I didn't mean to be so blunt—it just slipped out.

When I was alone later, I would slap myself across the face. Hard.

"I moved down here last year. The surfing's better. And I ended up being an escort—a
high-end
escort, mind you," he said, "about two months ago. My father cut me off, and I couldn't pay my bills anymore."

I watched his face. "You couldn't do something else? Like wait tables? Or be an office assistant or something?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not in possession of that many transferable skills," Kyle said, the cocky look leaving his face. "I never went to college. I barely finished high school, if you remember. And as for work… it's not like I have an extensive resume. And without my father's contacts, I only had a whole lot of nothing to fall back on."

The truth was, Kyle had probably never worked a day in his life before becoming an escort. From what I'd heard, he'd lived off of his father's vast fortune—the part remaining after his ugly divorce from my mother—until now. Kyle was always surfing and partying, living the good life in northern California. That was where we'd all lived as one big, unhappy family. His father, Pierce Richards, had a technology company that had been bought by Google. Then he'd started another company that was bought by Facebook.

My mother had really enjoyed spending Pierce Richards's money. Pierce Richards himself? She'd enjoyed him much, much less.

"So my only transferable skills really are this"—he motioned to his face—"and this." He motioned to the rest of his body. "I gave my boss's wife a surfing lesson, and she told me about AccommoDating. She said they wanted to recruit men for the business. I said I was interested, and Elena—she's the owner—came out to the beach that day and hired me on the spot. Apparently male escorts are a growing sector of the industry. I get paid pretty well." He shrugged.